Ryanair wins appeal in Spain over ruling on boarding passes

Ryanair has won its appeal against a Spanish ruling made in January which found that its fees for reissuing boarding passes were illegal.

In January the Barcelona commercial court said airlines and not passengers were obliged to issue boarding cards. It took the decision in a case brought by a lawyer who objected to being charged €40 after he failed to print his boarding card before a flight.

Ryanair immediately launched an appeal which it won yesterday. At the time the ruling was made Ryanair said it would be appealing on the fact that its passengers agreed at the time of booking that they would check in online and print off their own boarding cards at least four hours prior to the scheduled departure of their flight.

The airline welcomed the decision in the Barcelona appeal court and said that less than 1 per cent of its passengers pay this reissue penalty which, it said, applied “only in those rare cases where passengers fail to comply with their agreement, given at the time of booking”.